The present invention concerns a method and device for controlling the processing of an electronic document. It should be stated here that an electronic document consists of one or more electronic files.
In the computer systems known at the present time, the peripherals (computer or office machinery for data processing, acquisition or representation) generally have parametrizable operating modes, the parameters of which are fixed:
either at the time of manufacturer of the peripheral,
or, by default, by the central unit of the computer system,
or by a dialogue between the user and this computer system.
The operating mode used does not then directly take account of the characteristics of the document to be processed and/or of the constraints for processing this document by this peripheral.
In particular, in the case of a peripheral consisting of a printer, the constraints imposed by the printing of a document including images, for example the constraints of the duration of printing, the restoration of shades or of the quantity of information to be processed, are not directly taken into account by the computer systems in order to fix the printing parameters.
The present invention sets out to remedy these drawbacks.
To this end, the present invention relates, according to a first of its aspect, to a method of configuring a computer peripheral for processing data of a document, characterised in that it includes:
an operation of determining at least one symbol scatter quantity related to the said document,
an operation of comparing each said scatter quantity with at least one predetermined value, and
a configuration operation during which the result of each said comparison is taken into account in order for configuring said computer peripheral intended to implement this processing.
It should be stated here that:
the content of a file corresponds to a format of the data which it contains. By way of example, this content may include text, graphics (or drawings) and/or images;
a pilot configuration concerns both:
a pilot of an input/output means, which is configured, and
several pilots of such means, which are chosen and possibly which are configured; and
the approximate methods based on estimations form part of the methods referred to as heuristic in the literature and make reference to decision criteria, methods or principles used for choosing which of various alternatives is the most effective for achieving an aim. A heuristic is a compromise between on the one hand the need to use simple and/or rapid criteria and on the other hand to discriminate the best choice correctly.
Thus the result of the choice can prove to be ill suited to the processing to be carried out, unlike exact determination methods, which determine a content in a certain manner.
The reader can refer to the book by Judea Pearl, xe2x80x9cHeuristics, intelligent search strategies for computer problem solvingxe2x80x9d, published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, for more information on the concepts of heuristics and approximate determination.
It should be noted here that, in the state of the art known at the date of the present invention, a pilot is a software module in a computer system including a processor, a module dedicated to communication with another system having its operating software for performing a set of elementary operations.
The pilot translates a complex operation required by a high-level software application into a set of elementary operations which can be executed by the peripheral.
Configuring a pilot amounts to fixing the value of each parameter of the said translation. These parameters concern, for example, the translation of the character font into a series of dots able to be formed by the printer, or of the document colour palette into a colour palette of the printer.
Thus, when the invention is, for example, applied to a document to be printed, in order to choose the correct printer configuration:
the document is analysed in order to determine at least one quantity respectively the symbol scatter belonging to said document, as the entropy,
an estimation of the content of the file is then deduced therefrom, text, text and image, or images,
at least one printer suited to this content is determined, which is configured for printing all or part of this document, and
the printer is configured with the configuration data.
It should be stated here that the printer configuration concerns all the operating parameters of the printer.
In the case of the printing of a document, the invention makes it possible:
to improve the print chain, and
automatically to choose the correct configuration of this printer.
According to particular characteristics, the operation of determining a quantity representing symbol scatter includes an entropy determination operation.
By virtue of these provisions, the quantities considered are easy to determine, and accurately discriminate the content of the document. This is because a document including only text has very low entropy whilst documents including coded images (in particular when the coding includes a so-called xe2x80x9centropicxe2x80x9d coding) have very high entropy.
According to particular characteristics, the method as briefly disclosed above includes an operation of determining parts of the document and, for each of the said parts:
an operation of determining at least one symbol scatter quantity related to the said document part,
an operation of comparing each said scatter quality with at least one predetermined value, and
a configuration determination operation during which the result of each said comparison is taken into account in order to determine the configuration of the input/output means intended to implement this processing on the said document part.
By virtue of these provisions, for the processing of each part, for example each page, the choice of the input/output means and/or the configuration of the input/output pilot can be optimised for each part of the document to be processed.
According to a second aspect, the invention relates to a device for configuring a computer peripheral for processing data of a document, characterised in that it has:
a means of determining at least one symbol scatter quantity related to the said document,
a means of comparing each said scatter quantity with at least one predetermined value, and
a computer peripheral configuration means adapted to take into account the result of each said comparison in order to configure the computer peripheral intended to implement the processing of data of said document.
The invention also relates to a facsimile card, a display screen, a photographic apparatus and a camera including a sensor, characterised in that they include a device as briefly disclosed above.
According to other aspects, the invention also relates to:
a printer, characterised in that it has a device as briefly disclosed above, wherein said processing means includes a means of printing said document;
a facsimile machine, characterised in that it has a device as briefly disclosed above, wherein said processing means includes a means of printing said document;
a facsimile machine, characterised in that it has a device as briefly disclosed above, wherein said processing means includes a means of sending signals representing said document;
a modulator-demodulator, characterised in that it has a device as briefly disclosed above, wherein said processing means includes a means of sending signals representing said document;
an information storage device, characterised in that it has a device as briefly disclosed above, wherein said processing means includes a means of compressing data of said document;
a computer program on a data medium, such as a diskette or a compact disc, characterised in that it implements the method of the invention as briefly disclosed above; and
a memory, such as a diskette or a compact disc designed to be read by a data processing system, characterised in that it carries program instructions whose execution by the said processing system implements the method of the invention as briefly disclosed above.
The advantages of said device, said printer, said facsimile machine, said electronic facsimile card, said modem, said display screen, said photographic apparatus, said camera, said computer program on a data medium and said memory are identical to those of the method as briefly disclosed above. These advantages are therefore not repeated here.